Well, frankly...

Interesting use of words. How can one "despise" a book that is bland?

I am interested in hearing more, though. What is it about the book that you liked? What do you mean when you say the style of writing was bland? Or do you mean the action of the story? Can you show us some detail that was "trivial?"

I'm not meaning to put you on the spot. It's just that on this site we try to offer some detail as to how a piece or a book could have been better. We also like to acknowledge that there is something in a piece or a book that is good.

I am interested in your opinion, particularly if you made it all the way through.

Thanks
gg

Hm...I barely remember it now, but I just got back the report I wrote on the subject. So I may add something later.
Unless of course I'm too lazy.

I thought this book was so boring. I wish that julie osaka would pick which person she was talking about. She jumped around like crazy.i actually used this book to helpwith a research project on the camps,so all the details about life there proved really useful.The question I have to ask is How did this book help anyone in any way? and what was the reader supposed to get out of reading it?

I loved "When the Emperor Was Divine" particularly for its writing. Plot, setting, and character are not important here -- it is the style of writing that makes the book so compelling. The author chose not to name the characters and so woman is one of many women who went through this experience; the boy is one of many boys, and so forth. By not limiting to one character with a specific name, the author makes the story more universal. After all, not just one woman had to go home and pack up her home in this circumstance. Her husband had been arrested in December -- apparently right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor -- and she has to attend to all the details of preparing for internment by herself. She obviously loved the dog and gave it one good last meal before killing it, knowing that an old, sick dog would suffer if it were left behind, and it could not adapt to a new home like the cat. Her methodically dealing with the dog indicates a great deal about her. Telling each chapter from a different character's point of view gives the reader more insight into this experience than focusing on one character would have. It is important for the reader to live this experience through these many details, so the reader is left wondering how Americans could have treated their fellow Americans this way. We didn't suicide bomb them as in Iraq or put them to death as in the Nazi camps, but, as a person discussing the book said to me, "we destroyed their souls -- was that very difference from putting them physically to death?"